A session button starts one of the session tools for everyone in the room: a countdown timer, a stopwatch that counts up, a dot vote, or a poll you write in advance.
Adding one
There is one tile per tool in the Collaborate categories, so the element drops as the tool you picked rather than as a generic button you then have to point at one:
- Timer and Stopwatch are in the Tools category, with the Reveal zone, the Done check and the Picker.
- Dot Vote and Poll are in the Ask category, with the other ways of putting a question to the room.
Plan mode has no palette, so the Timer and Stopwatch elements are placed in the other modes.
It is how a canvas carries its own running order: put a 5 minute Timer over the writing column and a Dot vote reading "3 dots each" over the results, and anyone can run the session.
A Timer becomes the clock
A Timer goes further than starting something elsewhere: it shows the countdown on the canvas itself. Before it starts it shows its length with a start button; once running it has its own pause, resume, reset and remove controls. It is the same timer as the pill in the top bar, so pause it on the canvas and it pauses there too.
A Stopwatch is a button: press it to start counting up from zero for everyone, press again to pause, and again to continue. It has nothing to set, since a stopwatch has no length.
A tab runs one clock at a time, so a Timer and a Stopwatch on the same tab share it.
Changing the setting
Each button carries a … menu on its own face for the setting you change most: the length on a Timer (a dial plus presets of 1, 3, 5, 10, 15 and 30 minutes), the dots each on a Dot vote, and the question and answers on a Poll. The menu ends with All Settings… for the full element menu.
Changing a Timer's length from its … menu while it is counting restarts it at the new one, keeping it running (or paused) as it was. Extend a timer between rounds rather than mid-round. Changing it from the right-click Session section saves the new length for next time and leaves a running timer alone.
A button stays the tool you picked it as. If you want a countdown where you put a vote, drag a Timer out of the palette instead: the palette has one tile per tool, so choosing there is the whole decision.
Pressing a Dot vote button while a vote is already running does nothing, because starting again would wipe the dots already cast.
How a Poll button asks
A Poll button carries its answers as well as its question, and you pick the shape they take, the same six the poll composer offers:
- Yes / No, and + Abstain for the version with a way out.
- Choices: the answers you write yourself, two to ten of them.
- Collaborators: the people in the document become the answers, taken when the poll starts.
- Rating 1-5.
- Free text, for answers people type.
Only Choices reads a written list. Switch to Yes / No and the list is left alone but unused, so you can try a shape and come back without retyping anything. A Choices button with fewer than two answers has nothing to press, so it shows as not set up until you add a second one; every other shape is ready as soon as it has a question.
Who can start one
Starting a tool needs edit access, so on a Participant or Viewer link the button shows as unavailable (a Timer shows its clock without the controls), though Participants can still take part once somebody starts it. While somebody holds the facilitator role, pressing session buttons and the settings in their … menu are theirs.
Was this article helpful?